Saving the World…One Spoof at a Time!

This was a good one…The merry pranksters behind the CoalCares.org site not only had the moxy to add a ™ symbol to their site name, they even had the bravado to use the (genuinely) registered trademark of Peabody Energy as well. Not only were they content to spoof the coal industry’s attempts at better Community Relations, they even linked directly back to Peabody Energy for maximum effect and traceability!

In its shameless contempt for the world’s largest private-sector coal company, this spoof site represents itself as a branding initiative intended to reach out to American youngsters with asthma and to help them “keep their heads high in the face of those who would treat them with less than full dignity”. For kids who have no choice but to use an inhaler, Coal Cares™ lets them inhale with pride!

Trademarks? We don’t need no steenkin trademarks!

Bravo to those who would construct a clever ruse to remind people of a coal-fuelled society…

This somewhat mitigates fact that the domain itself (coalcares.org) appears to be owned by one of those parasitic name squatters (erm “Domainers”) who register otherwise useful names (and often trademarks!) for no purpose other than to dupe people into landing on one of their parked pages, where they hope to generate revenues from pointless ads…All while hoping that someone will pony up to pay a grossly inflated price for a domain name.

What this domain also now represents though, is need to safely spoof and parody the PR efforts of the big Coal and PetroChem Giants. Thus, in the same way tha entertainers can reference trademarks under the auspices of “fair use”, hopefully this sort of thing is allowed to flourish as well…At least until a clear message can get across amidst all the hype.